Wednesday, 28 November 2012 21:23

Siri in Chevrolet cars… well sort of

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At the auto show which is being held in Los Angeles, General Motors announced that Siri, Apple's voice assistant that is available to users of the iPhone 4S and 5, iPad Mini with Retina and the fifth-generation iPod Touch, will be integrated into models of Chevrolet Spark and Sonic at the begining of next year (2013).

Siri will use a combination of the iPhone 4S and 5 with Chevrolet MyLink system, a way to connect with each other via Bluetooth. Siri will be activated by pressing the appropriate button on the steering wheel of these cars. Using voice commands, drivers will be able to make calls, play music, read and write messages, enter appointments in the calendar and other stuff. Of course, all of this will be carried out exclusively by voice, so without looking at the screen of their smartphones. Moreover, in order to increase the level of traffic safety the phone screen wont turn on itself at all (so called Eyes Free mode).
 
Siri's integration into the vehicles was announced by some other car manufacturers (Honda and BMW, to name a few), but GM has beat them all, with an interesting fact that the technology will be first integrated in Chevrolet models that are targeted at younger people with shallower pockets, and not on one of the company's fancier models. It remains unknown whether the same method will be available for the iPad Retina and Mini and the last generation iPod Touch or will the described pairing be possible only with iPhone 4S and 5.

[Ed – This “Integration” of Siri is interesting, but as it requires the use of an iPhone to operate it will lose some of its street value. While there are more than enough iPhone 4s and 5 phones out there it is unlikely to drive someone’s choice of car simply because they can talk to their phone and operate vehicle features. There is already a system that does that on the market from Ford and Microsoft. This technology has been out for a while and is rather more mature than what you will see in these new vehicles. We have a feeling that this will impact sales…]

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Read 3232 times Last modified on Wednesday, 28 November 2012 21:28

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